


Devil

by siriuslyhiddenlawyer



Category: Sherlock (TV), Shinedown (Band)
Genre: Angst, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Devil, Established Relationship, Established Sherlolly, F/M, Sherlolly - Freeform, Shinedown, Suspense, sherlolly angst, sherlolly fanfic, sherlolly fanfiction, sherlolly song fic, suspenseful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-19 23:56:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16544795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslyhiddenlawyer/pseuds/siriuslyhiddenlawyer
Summary: This fic is based on the song by SHINEDOWN from their new album DEVIL. Italics are lyrics.Link to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AsPY1bQx70





	1. Chapter 1

_ Pick it up, pick it up, pick up the phone! _

Molly was pacing back and forth, frustration turning her face red as she chewed on her thumbnail, listening to the dial tone that eventually led to Sherlock’s voicemail where messages went to die. 

She realized she was muttering “pick it up pick it up”, her heart beating of her chest as she prayed that for once in his bloody life, Sherlock Holmes would answer his phone. But he wasn’t even answering her texts, which was never a good sign. It meant he was either in trouble or being a prat, too busy on the case.

Christ she should’ve gone with him to Paris, she should’ve let him talk her into leaving her life for a weekend to go  galivanting  through the city of light, posing as his wife at some fancy soiree, which usually involved her trying not to laugh at his disguise. This disguise involved his curly hair being slicked back with a ridiculous, mysteriously ginger mustache he’d been  secretly  cultivating in Baker Street for the past month.

She should’ve listened, should’ve  succumbed  to her lover but damn her. For all the times she’d folded under Sherlock’s pressure, under the burden of endless love for him,  this  time she had to find a backbone and tell her lover she couldn’t accompany him to Paris. He’d looked at her with those beautiful eyes and she’d...refused, telling him she had work, that she would love nothing better than to drop everything and go to Paris with him but she had responsibilities. 

_ You said it yourself you're scared of being alone _

When he’d told  her  he didn’t want to be alone, she’d kissed him slowly, pressing her palm against his chest, “I love you, and if you feel lonely there, all you have to do is call and I'll talk to you darling. It’s only three days.  I’m only a text away. ”

_ You said it yourself that you can crack the code _

She’d pressed her forehead to his, smiling as he’d pouted with his bag  packed ready  behind him  in the hallway,  his mustache ridiculously sexy though she would never admit it. She’d sifted through his curls, holding him close as she’d offered to help him with the case remotely. But he’d looked almost offended, his color changing eyes becoming slightly angry, “I can crack the code Molly,” he’d told her with a roll of his eyes. 

And now this...and now he wasn’t picking up his damned phone!   
  
_ But the static you hear automatically keeps you exposed, on your own _

She rang him again but this time, it didn’t even dial, just went straight to voicemail and Molly made her decision. She ran upstairs to her bedroom, grabbing the bag she used for her overnights with Sherloc k , throwing her passport and anything else she could imagine into the bag. 

Panic was starting to set in, worry as she wondered if he’d gotten to Sherlock yet...as her heart thundered with terror, her imagination giving her all kinds of improbable, impossible reasons why Sherlock wasn’t answering his phone. She nearly vomited, barely keeping her voice steady as she called a travel agency, arranging to be on the next flight out of London to Paris, no matter the cost, no matter the time. She didn’t care about class, didn’t care about accommodations, she just needed to get to Paris, needed to get to the Paris Ritz.   
  
_ I hope you're ready, steady, smashing through the levy _

If he was in trouble, if  he’d  gotten to Sherlock before she could warn  the detective , she hoped Sherlock had picked up enough clues along the way to know he was back, that he was going after Sherlock with his full might and power. She hoped Sherlock  was  on top of his game, and she knew for a fact that  he  was. 

But there was a part of her that was terrified that domesticity had slowed  Sherlock  down, the way he always feared.    
  
__ The drama, the trauma, don't play the prima donna   
My God   
You said it yourself that you would never stop   
Until you felt the needle drop

They’d been through so damned much together. Their road to this point in their life had been an uphill battle from the get-go. From Sherlock’s unwillingness to admit that he was a human being with emotions and feelings, a man  who  experienced anger and love and lust and every other unproductive emotion, as he called them, like every other man. They’d faced so much together, had lived through unbelievable trauma standing side by side, had walked into so many storms together. ..

He'd always told her, with a smile on his face, that he was worried  if  he settled down, when he let himself love Molly the way he always wanted to, the way she deserved, he would lose interest in the criminal classes. There had always been a sense in him that being with Molly emotionally exposed him to danger, made him sluggish. 

Over the course of the past few years that they were together however, he’d  commented  here and there that he felt sharper in fact, that he felt more levelheaded when he walked on to the scene because he didn’t have  these voices  screaming in his mind, in his thoughts, in his brain about the past that he had hidden from himself. Those demons were silenced by Molly, he told her one night as they lay together in their dark bedroom, and he felt stronger than before, sharper, faster. 

But she worried now. What if she was slowing him down, and it was costing them their life?   
  
_ Now you pack your bags, the party's such a drag   
And everyone can tell that you're poisoning the well _

She was out of her mind by the time the taxi came to pick her up, throwing one of her fancy black gowns  into her luggage , just in case she needed to pose at the party with Sherlock after all was said and done. If her guess was correct, if her deciphering of the message was accurate, then whatever was being planned revolved around the event Sherlock was in Paris to attend. 

She nearly chewed her thumb off with worry, staring at her phone as she willed Sherlock to call her, to return her damned text messages while simultaneously wondering if it was a good idea to reach out to him. God knows what was done to her phone, if it was tapped or rigged, and that worry kept her from calling Mycroft. 

They didn’t have the best track records with phones...

And  even if she hadn’t been worried about the phones having been tapped, Mycroft’s history with... him  wasn’t the greatest. And he’d made a few comments during that cryptic message 

She trusted Mycroft with her own life, but not with Sherlock’s. 

She never trusted anyone with Sherlock’s life. It was far too precious.

In the end she had been forced to charter a private flight to Paris, not really registering the ridiculous amount of money she was being charged , not really caring . She just needed to get to Sherlock, to warn him, to help him however she could.

They'd figure out Mycroft’s role in all of this later.   
  
_ But there are no mistakes, except what you create   
You need to know your place _

Not going with Sherlock had been a mistake, refusing him what he’d asked her for had been a mistake. She shouldn’t have let him go  alone, she shouldn’t have let her own fears get in the way of helping her lover when he asked for it. 

But she’d been terrified at the prospect of spending the entire weekend exclusively with Sherlock, glued to his side. Not when she was trying to hide her secret from him, just long enough to figure out how she would give him her news. ..well, their news.

Now this, now she was rushing to him, putting all of them in danger she didn’t understand, couldn’t fathom as she was rushed through the gate and  was  taken to the private airplane where a rather young-looking captain and scattered looking flight crew waited for her. The name of the company barely registered,  MJN Air , and  Molly  barely heard the older stewardess,  clearly  bored out of her mind, telling her she should already know how to fasten her belt unless she’d never been in a car before. 

As the craft took off, Molly realized her  place in the world was by his side,  always  by his side, helping him, loving him. 

He never let his fears keep him from her, not anymore. And she owed him at least that much.

_ ' Cause  it's about to get heavy    
It's about to be on  _

Molly’s terror began to melt into white hot anger and determination that no one would or could get close enough to Sherlock to hurt him.  Not  again . 

She may have been small and not-so-physically intimidating, she didn’t know how to fight or use firearms, and never thought she had to learn how. After her last encounter with  him , Greg Lestrade and even John had offered to teach her some self-defense but she had Sherlock, and he’d always protect her.    
  
_ Yeah, I'm  bangin '  slingin ' napalm  _

But even though she was half his size and... well, useless  in hand-to-hand or any other kind of violent altercation , she was still protective of Sherlock. He'd even noticed her tendency to step in front of him if there was a dangerous situation or someone was raising their voice to him (usually a detective that hadn’t encountered Sherlock Holmes before). She probably couldn’t physically protect him but damn her, she would try. 

_ So  nobody move   
'Cause  I was sent to warn you   
the  devil’s  in the next room _

She  scrubbed  her face, more than ready to protect him with her life now...well, their life. But the devil was back, and he was waiting  next door  for Sherlock.

And Sherlock needed her.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_ The silence, the silence _

When she got to the hotel, she managed to convince the front desk clerk that she was married to William Selfridge, even showing her pictures from the little ceremony five months ago where she had officially become  “ Mrs.  Selfridge” , though she hadn’t changed her married name to Holm e s. She stood in the lobby, tapping her fingers as the girl did something on her computer keyboard, trying to find out if Mr.  Sel f ridge  was still in his room. 

Molly grabbed her phone out of her pocket, jet lagged and exhausted with worry and rage that anyone would try to hurt her husband. She listened to the familiar ringing, the silence on the other end making her want to cry in frustration in the lobby. Tears stung her eyes as the girl behind the counter got her attention to tell her she couldn’t say if Mr. Sel f ridge was at the hotel, but she was more than happy to give her the room number and key. 

Nodding her gratitude, Molly ran towards the elevator, avoiding the curious looks of the other guests as she pressed down on the button, willing the elevator to go up faster. She looked at the keycard in her hand, room 1633.

She’d half expected the rooms to align to have a triple six digit next to Sherlock’s. The number of the beast...    
  
_ The blinding  ultra-violence   
Knockin ' at your door _

She rushed down the hallway once the elevator arrived, frantically muttering under  her  breath, half  expect ing  the devil to pop out at her in the hallway. 

How was this happening? 

Hadn’t he killed himself? 

Blown off half his brain?

And if this  was another  game...like last time...who was behind this one?

Praying silently, not necessarily understanding what her prayers  were,  she slipped the key into the slit and the door unlocked. She opened it, her heart thundering as she  imagined  the most horrendous  scenario on the other side of the door. 

Instead, she found a  pristine , clean hotel room. She found signs of her husband in the tea tray that was on the coffee table, the TV remote she knew he planted on the couch for the benefit of the housekeepers, the  sandwich  he’d ordered and bisected by hand to convince the people in the hotel he was a normal man who actually ate without his wife reminding him constantly to eat. 

She walked into the bedroom of the suite and found his sheets as tangled as he left them when he was at home, the window open but there didn’t seem to be anything out of place. She walked into the bathroom and found more of the same life touches he’d added. 

Worry was a physical presence now, following her from room to room, breathing down her neck as she thought about the devil in the next room, waiting for her, for her Sherlock...to destroy their life, to take apart the pieces they’d so carefully and lovingly put together.    
  
_ Pacin ' back and forth _

There was nothing to do now but pace.

She wanted to leave, to go looking for Sherlock but where could she go. He knew Paris almost as well as  he k new London, had as many  bolt holes  here, and spoke French better than most native speakers. The master of disguise and hiding in plain sight, there was no way she could track him down without getting lost herself, and endangering all of them.

She put her hand  protectively  over her stomach, over the life whose existence she hadn’t told Sherlock about, hadn’t found the right words to look into those beautiful eyes, eyes she had stared into and promised to love and honor for all her days. She wanted to tell him she kept her promise to him, that they would start a life together and they literally had started a life. But she didn’t know how to tell him, or when...   
  
_ What now?  _

The important thing now was to find out where Sherlock was, to simply get in contact with him and make sure he was alright, that he was alive and aware of the message she’d gotten right after he’d left their home. 

The news about their baby had to wait. 

One at a time, she told herself, still pacing the length of the hotel suite, chewing her nail, constantly checking her phone to see if she had battery, a signal.

Her heart and soul were screaming for Sherlock, willing him to call, to walk through that door and hold her in his arms, against his chest and tell her everything was alright. The devil was vanquished, dead, that he wasn’t next door, that he  wasn’t  going to touch their lives again.   
  
_ the whispers and the screams   
the stereotypical profiling ritual   
Vicious and obscene _

The last time, they had nearly lost the war against him. She remembered the sacrifices they’d made, the hardships they’d endured to put the devil back in the box and out of their lives forever, rid the world of his poison.

She knew they could do it again. They were more united than ever, experienced in deal ing  with psychopath ic serial killers, ruthless,  heartless  creatures posing as humans . But it was the mere thought of Sherlock’s peace being destroyed by  him  again, the thought that he would have to reacquaint himself with the insanity of the devil, with the world of consulting criminals...the strange rituals of a cat and mouse game where the roles flip-flopped. 

The angel and the devil...   
  
__ 'Cause  it's about to get heavy    
It's about to be on   
  
When he walked in through the door, Molly nearly collapsed with relief. 

Sherlock...didn’t look like Sherlock and that had been his intention. He looked like the hip art-dealer he was posing as, his curly black hair tamed and slicked back, his mustache perfectly combed over his upper lip, wearing a brow n  colored jumper, green trousers and brown suede boots. He looked devastatingly handsome and she momentarily forgot what was happening, why she was here and in such a panic. She simply got lost in her husband.

“Molly?” surprise dripped from his tone, his expression as he forgot to shut the door behind him, concern and confusion  clouding  those shifting blue green eyes, “what are you doing here?” he nearly yelled.

She tripped over her own feet getting to him, “where have you been, why haven’t you been answering your phone?” she demanded but didn’t have time to listen to him as she gripped the front of his jumper  in her fists , “listen. Right after you left the house, I got a message to go to the lab to test some samples so I went. There was no one there,” she took a deep breath, clinging to him now as she looked into his eyes, “there was a message waiting for me there, ’I said farewell to those insipidly happy fields, the joy that dwells there is so boring. I’m back with the horror, hail horrors hail! It’s so much sexier to rule in hell, I can’t imagine how bored that little angel is! Tell him I’m next door.’”   
  
_ Yeah, I'm  bangin '  slingin ' napalm    
So  nobody move _

Sherlock froze as she recited the message she’d memorized out of terror, “that’s Milton,” he breathed, “Moriarty,” he hissed the name. 

Molly needed, somehow the terror become more real, accessible when even Sherlock admitted that it was Moriarty. S he’d so hoped she’d been wrong. 

S he looked into her husband’s eyes, “But how--”    
  
_ 'Cause  I was sent to warn you   
The devil's right beside you _

The words lodged themselves in her throat, the question forgotten, thoughts fleeing her mind as panic and terror gripped her, “the devil’s right beside you,” she whispered, looking over Sherlock’s shoulder directly  into the grinning face of  James Moriarty. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes.  
> That's the end.


End file.
